


You're not what you thought you were

by yasminkhxns



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Identity Issues, Introspection, Loss of Identity, because apparently that's all i can write while s12 is airing but damn can u blame me she's so SAD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-28
Updated: 2020-01-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:22:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22443265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yasminkhxns/pseuds/yasminkhxns
Summary: The Doctor is having an identity crisis. Yaz is there to offer what comfort she can.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor & Yasmin Khan
Comments: 16
Kudos: 79





	You're not what you thought you were

**Author's Note:**

> omfg lads that episode was actually so wild and i knew as soon as it finished i wanted to write about poor babey thirteen having an identity crisis because everything is so angsty atm,,,,, us thassies going thru our emo phase rn
> 
> anyway idk if this is kinda messy but i also kinda liked it??? and i feel its a bit of a different style to how i usually write?? 
> 
> either we love uploading at like 2am eyyyyyyyyyyy

The stars.

They were always so calming, so comforting. Yet now, as she stared out into never ending space from where she sat in the doorway of the TARDIS, the Doctor couldn’t see the stars, only the emptiness surrounding them as she realised — that’s how she currently felt inside. 

Empty, because her home was gone once more. Empty, because every time she went back hoping it was just her imagination, a perception filter,  _ anything  _ but true she felt herself break a little more. Empty, because — who was she? 

And that was the question. The all consuming black hole of a question that was consuming her from the inside out and leaving nothing behind. Nothing but emptiness. Numbness. An anxiety that set deep in her gut and had already set its roots, twisting and tightening around her insides. 

Was there are part of her past locked away she didn’t know about? The remnants made that pretty clear;

_ “We see what's hidden even from yourself, the outcast, abandoned and unknown.” _

Or was Ruth lying and she  _ was  _ her future? Or was she from another universe entirely? The very prospect of another  _ her  _ unbearably overwhelming. 

In all her thousands of years, the Doctor had never felt so lost. The nauseating, heavy feeling in her chest weighing her hearts down — she felt worse than when she’d questioned if she was a good man. Though that identity crisis felt like simple addition compared to the convoluted unsolvable equation this one had become.

At least back then she’d been able to find the answer. But this —  _ this  _ — was a whole new realm of confusing. So confusing, that it was frustrating, and so frustrating that she felt like she could cry. Had swallowed the feeling down multiple times. First when her friends questioned her on the TARDIS, second when Gat spoke of the ‘ _ glory of Gallifrey’ _ , third when Ruth (herself?) had dropped her off, and finally when Ryan had tried to reassure her of who she was.

His speech had worked, but only briefly. 

The proof in how the Doctor had been sat unsettlingly still for hours, staring out into the vastness of the universe, blinking back tears that threatened to spill as she wondered — who exactly was she? 

It was therefore a miracle that, so lost in her head, the Doctor managed to just pick up the sound of quiet footsteps echoing around the console room, edging closer until they came to a stop behind her, and a gentle voice called out. 

“Doctor?”

Yaz. Of course it was Yaz. It was always Yaz. Graham would start a conversation about what she was hiding, but it was  _ always  _ Yaz that would push. The Doctor knew she only wanted to help, wanted to know what was wrong, why she was being so snappy, all so she could  _ help _ . Yet, how could Yaz help someone who didn’t even know who they were anymore. 

“Doctor?” Yaz called again, still stood apprehensively behind her. 

_ “Everything you think you know… is a lie.” _

Her mind was still reeling, going haywire with unanswered questions ever since she met Ruth, or herself? The Doctor?

_ “One of us has to be wrong.” _

Her brain was fizzing, but not in the way she liked, more like it was burning with inner turmoil and resentment, on the tipping point ready to boil over with a sense of utter loss. Loss for Gallifrey, loss for her identity.

“Doctor,” Yaz’s presence was next to her now, she could feel it, yet she barely acknowledged it. Was it right for her to respond to ‘Doctor?’ Was that who she was? “Please look at me.” 

Yaz’s voice bounced around her mind, not quite hitting where it needed, diluted by thoughts that raced a mile a minute around the Doctor’s head. She knew she couldn’t look at her friend, if she did — she might just break. 

“Doctor,” 

A tentative hand rested on her knee now, and in the corner of her vision she could just about see Yaz dipping her head, trying to catch her eye,  _ just  _ missing it every time. 

_ Don’t look _ , the Doctor pleaded to herself as her sight turned blurry, a lump forming in her throat. 

“Doctor, I’m worried for you. Please tell me what’s wrong.” 

_ Doctor.  _ Was that her? Or was it someone else? Was it Ruth? Had she been an imposter for thousands of years? Or was Ruth the imposter? She didn’t know, how  _ could  _ she know. Ruth — the Doctor — had left her with a thousand questions.

Why was she a fugitive? If Ruth really was her past, what in the universe had she done?

_ “I know what I’ve done, I know my own life.”  _

Did she?

“Doctor,” Yaz pleaded, her own voice trembling with worry.

Don’t look. 

“Doctor,” A pause, “Why are you crying?”

The Doctor — surprised to feel the wetness on her cheek — slowly looked up into deep brown eyes as a lone tear trickled down pale skin, and the crack that had been slowly forming this whole time ripped open like a badly healed wound.

“I don’t know who I am.” she whispered. 

She cursed herself for sounding so defeated, so _ broken _ , yet when Yaz’s arm reached around her waist and pulled her into a hug she didn’t realise she’d been so desperately craving, the Doctor allowed just a few of the tears that had been building and building to spill over. She hid her face in Yaz’s neck, refusing to show the weakness of more tears, but still allowing the dampness to fall against dark skin. 

Yaz didn’t say a word, instead offering the quiet comfort of gentle circles rubbing against her back, and the lightest of kisses pressed where skin met hair. 

“Doctor,” Yaz started, her voice soft and careful as she stared out at the brightness of the stars, pupils clinging to the hope they shone with, “I don’t know what’s going on in that big brain of yours because you don’t tell us much, but we all know there’s something you’re struggling with inside your head. And whatever it is, we aren’t ever gonna force you tell us, you can tell us in your own time and that’s if you even want to tell us at all and either way that’s ok. But right now? I just want you to know, we’re for you, no matter what.  _ I’m _ here for you no matter what. Anytime, anywhere. And we’re  _ not  _ leaving you. Ok? I promise.”

There was a brief silence between the two women, and a quiet sniffle from the Doctor.

“You can’t promise that.” she mumbled into Yaz’s neck.

Yaz squeezed the Doctor a little tighter. “I can.”

Silence lingered then as the Doctor basked in the false promise that her family would never leave. But they were only human, and something that had become very clear, was that everything fell apart around her.

Even her own identity. Apparently. 

**Author's Note:**

> kudos and comments are my life blood <333


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